My Latest Hats

With the latest Star Wars movie and the introduction of the new little droid, BB 8, I had to try to design a hat to look like him. I didn't have the right color of orange, so I used what I had (I've gotten a better color now). I'm trying to decide if I need to do some of the "outline" areas.

Reference picture

I had made an infant Hello Kitty hat for a swap and decided to make a bigger one.

R2D2 Earflap Hat

In exchange for my sister painting the kit for the swap baby I did in October, I told her I'd knit her an R2D2 hat with earflaps.

Have you ever had a project that it seemed that everything and anything that could go wrong, would? Well, this was one of those projects!

I figured out the graph (which took several revisions to get it right) and then did a test run-though of the pattern to figure out the approximate size he'd end up.  I bought the yarn and then did the cast on.  My cable came off of the needle in the middle of casting on, so I had to start over!  I knit about 10 rows and realized it was ending up way too big, so I pulled it all back out and started over with only 5 pattern repeats instead of 6.  After I was knitting awhile, my cable broke, so I had to rescue my stitches and switch to a different needle!  I was 3/4 of the way done and I wasn't liking how it was looking.  The stitches looked pucker-y.  So I ripped it back about 20 rows and restarted.  Next came time to figure out the earflaps.  I had my sister try on the hat and see where the flaps needed to be, but after I got them both done, they didn't seem quite right, so I had her try it on again.  Sure enough, they weren't wide enough after all!  So I ripped them out again!  I still had to figure out the fleece for the lining and it went semi-well!  In the end, I think it turned out okay, although I really wasn't 100% happy with the top of the hat!

Animal Ear Flap Hats

I had made Emily a Princess Leia "bun hair" hat and had/have plans to make Star Wars themed hats for the other kids (R2D2, Yoda...) but haven't gotten to them.  Sarah asked if I could make her a monkey hat.  She wanted it to have ear flaps and strings.  So I set out to design one.  After making hers, the other kids gave me their "orders" for the animal hat they wanted.  I had Sarah's made before Christmas, but then I had other things I had to work on, so I didn't get to the other 3 hats until last week.  I finished Will's on the 12th, Andy's on the 14th, and Emily's on the 15th.

Monkey

Bunny

Frog

Puppy

All of them together

And because I mentioned it, Emily's Princess Leia bun hair hat

Angry Bird Hat Commissions

I picked the girls up last Thursday for the carriage rides (which I still need to post!) and Sarah's former Kindergarten teacher saw Emily's Princess Leia hat I had made her and asked if I could make Angry Bird hats for her sons.  I googled pictures of them and figured I could!  I delivered them to her yesterday and she was thrilled with them (Yay!  ☺)